Labor & Employment Law

Resolving inconsistencies between the Civil Service Law and a Taylor Law contract

By Harvey Randall, Esq.

Resolving inconsistencies between the Civil Service Law and a Taylor Law contract

In the Matter of County of Chautauqua v Civil Service Employees Association, Local 1000, et al., 8 N.Y.3d 513

The Court of Appeals held that because public policy precludes the arbitration of CSEA?s ?primary grievance? which challenged the County?s determining which positions are to be abolished, the County?s petition to stay arbitration should be granted with respect to that issue. In contrast, because there is no clear public policy that would preclude arbitration of CSEA?s ?secondary grievance? involving displacement rights of employees to be laid off as a result of the abolishment of such positions, the Court of Appeals ruled that CSEA?s cross-motion to compel arbitration should be granted to that extent.

The case arose when Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) demanded that grievances concerning applying layoffs and rights of displacement provisions contained in its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the County of Chautauqua be submitted to arbitration. Chautauqua, however, ?perceived a conflict? in applying Section 14.05 of the CBA with the provisions of Civil Service Law Section 80 with respect to its abolishing positions in the competitive class and sought a court order staying arbitration.

Section 14.05 of the CBA provides, in part, that ?[a]ll layoffs shall be pursuant? to the following:

?(a) For layoff purposes, an employee?s seniority shall determine the order to be followed. In a department, the employee with the least seniority shall be the first to be laid off until the total number of employees required to decrease forces shall be reached. When all displacement possibilities are exhausted within the department, the employee shall have the right to displace in other departments? (emphasis supplied).

In contrast, Civil Service Law Section 80(1), entitled ?Suspension or demotion,? dictates how a public employer must reduce competitive class civil service positions. It provides, in part:

?Where, because of economy, consolidation or abolition of functions, curtailment of activities or otherwise, positions in the competitive class are abolished or reduced in rank or salary grade, suspension or demotion, as the case may be, among incumbents holding the same or similar positions shall be made in the inverse order of original appointment on a permanent basis in the classified service in the service of the governmental jurisdiction in which such abolition or reduction of positions occurs?
(emphasis supplied).

In addition, Section 80(4) provides, in part that: ?Upon the abolition or reduction of positions in the service of a civil division, suspension or demotion shall be made from among employees holding the same or similar positions in the entire department or agency within which such abolition or reduction of positions occurs? (emphasis added).

In response to County?s request for guidance concerning these issues, the State Department of Civil Service advised the County that a collective bargaining agreement ?may not alter the layoff units prescribed by Section 80(4).?

Ultimately, the matter came before the Court of Appeals. In arriving at its determination, the court said [1] the Taylor Law empowers and, in fact, requires a public employer to bargain with employee organizations and to enter written agreements governing the terms and conditions of employment and [2] an employer has wide latitude to negotiate such terms and can agree to submit disputes to arbitration subject, however, to ?the absence of ?plain and clear? prohibitions in statute or controlling decisional law, or restrictive public policy.?

The threshold determination of whether a dispute is arbitrable is subject to a two-part test:

a. Is ?there is any statutory, constitutional or public policy prohibition against arbitration of the grievance?; and, if not so prohibited,

b. Did the parties, in fact, agreed to arbitrate the particular dispute, which is to be determined by examining the parties? collective bargaining agreement.

In the words of the Court of Appeals, ?a court must stay arbitration where it can conclude, upon examining the parties? contract and the implicated statute on their face, ?that the granting of any [sic] relief would violate public policy.??[1]

Addressing CSEA?s first grievance regarding layoffs, the court said that it is ?inescapably implicit? from a plain reading of Section 80(1) that a public employer has a non-delegable discretion to determine ? for reasons of economy, among others ? what its staffing and budgetary needs are in order to effectively deliver uninterrupted services to the public. Thus, in the absence of bad faith, fraud or collusion, the exercise of such discretion ?is an undisputed management prerogative? for the public?s benefit, and cannot be altered or modified by agreement or otherwise.

Accordingly, having made an ?informed decision? regarding the abolishment of positions, Section 80(1) requires the employer to respect the seniority rights of its employees.

In contrast, said the court, under the CBA, seniority controls the abolition of positions while under the statute seniority controls only after the employer decides which positions will be affected. This, said the court, creates conflict that is plainly irreconcilable.

As to CSEA?s grievance regarding displacement rights, here the court concluded that the ?non-arbitrability of this issue is less clear.?

The Court of Appeals decided that Section 80(4) does not contain any explicit language that can be read to prohibit, in an absolute sense, a public employer from agreeing to permit employees to ?bump? less senior employees in another department or division within the same layoff unit.

The court did not find ?any implicit public policy reason? that would bar making such an agreement, or having made it, enforce its provisions. But, said the court, CSEA?s claim to inter-departmental displacement rights may be viable only to the extent that the second department or agency comes within the same layoff unit as the originating department or agency as an arbitral award that would permit inter-departmental bumping into a different layoff unit would run afoul of the Civil Service Law.

In the opinion of the court, however, such an award is not inevitable, as the arbitrator could fashion an award under the CBA that would be consistent with the Civil Service Law in this regard. Thus, it declined to hold that there was a ?public policy? issue that would bar the submission grievances involving ?inter-departmental displacement rights? to arbitration.

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).